Marshal Law

by Adam D Jones

  Raine watched him leave, walking outside while continuing his muttering rant.

  “I thought you’d be more excited to meet someone like him,” said Dawn. “At least he was nice to you.”

  Raine frowned. “Something’s not right around here. Hild is right: someone had to tell the Republic how to find this place.”

  ◆◆◆

  If any books about the Gift survived, they had to be here.

  Raine didn’t have to tell the others to be careful. He noticed right away his fellow travelers crept up and down the stairs in a respectful silence, helping him look for anything that could teach him more about the Dae stones. The towering tomes, surely the largest collection of books on the continent, enforced a sense of wonder and reverence.

  Raine started by walking around the bottom floor first. He took in every title and each one rang in his memory. He’d only memorized a handful of books during his training, but the catalog was well known to even the greenest acolyte.

  “What are we looking for?” whispered Dawn from nearly the top. She had been the most eager. As soon as Nilus, left Raine saw her inch toward the stairs and then climb to the highest level as quickly and quietly as possible.

  “No idea,” he whispered back carefully. “None of the books the Keepers memorize teach anything about the Gift. If they still exist, they have to be here. Also, look for any title that seems provocative.”

  “A provocative book?” whispered Marshal, standing just above Raine on the next level. “In a religious house?”

  “You know what I mean. Anything that might contain history. The Sovereign would be interested in that. At least, that’s my guess.”

  Marshal nodded and returned to the shelves.

  Raine began climbing the stairs and painstakingly reading every book cover, high and low. Dawn and Marshal interrupted him a few times with books they found, but none of them proved interesting. When he reached the final book on the top floor, a familiar tome about poetry, he turned to Marshal and Dawn and shook his head. The three of them shared a tired sigh.

  “Take another look,” suggested Marshal. He stepped slowly so his boots wouldn’t make noise. “Lots of books in here. Easy to miss something.”

  Raine felt his hands gripping the railing harder. “No use. Marshal, I looked at them all.” His whisper rose to a hiss. “Nothing was unfamiliar—I’ve heard of all those titles! I thought there would be something new in here.”

  Dawn pointed down toward a shelf. “I saw one up there that mentioned the Outsiders in its title. Legends, I assume, but might have something.”

  “I know that one,” said Raine. “It’s actually about politics.” Below them, he noticed Amelia looking up and struggling to hear their hushed voices. “’Against the Outsiders’ explains one man’s view on Lodi autonomy. It’s boring. And I know it well.”

  “There was one on the bottom,” said Marshal. “A big green book down there called—”

  “’The Runes of Power.’” Raine shook his head. “Grammar book, if you will, for writing runes.”

  Marshal shrugged. “You’ve already been down this road, haven’t you?”

  “I know there’s something else,” said Raine. “Books always talk about other books. A library is just a conversation happening, a murmur between the different tomes, and I’ve always thought there were holes in the conversation. References to references that I could never track down...” Raine looked at the little door across from them at the top level. “Come on, let’s look in Nilus’s room.”

  The room was bare as a monk’s cell. A mattress lay flat on the wooden beams, and only a few personal belongings were scattered around.

  “No place to hide anything up here,” said Marshal. “Unless you want to cut open his mattress.”

  “I don’t,” said Raine. “They already think I’m crazy enough around here. Let’s keep looking. Nothing else to do.”

  They began to descend, tugging on shelves and searching behind books for anything hidden.

  Raine felt his heart twitch each time he grabbed a shelf and tried to pull on it, wondering if it would reveal a secret. The sacredness of the library made him barely capable of speaking aloud, and to put his foot down too hard created cringing echoes.

  Halfway down, Dawn waved her hand to get their attention.

  “It could be in the books,” she said.

  Her voice came so quiet Raine that had to stand near and tilt his ear her direction.

  She went on. “What if the pages in these books are different?”

  “No,” said Raine, “The Keepers come here to memorize the books. They have to be the same.”

  “Maybe someone carries them around,” said Marshal.

  “You know...that’s not bad.” Raine leaned against a bookshelf, careful not to let it creak. “There’s a pocket in these robes that’s big enough to hide a book.”

  “Or maybe a secret panel in the stairs.” Dawn knelt and tapped at the stair below her feet. “If it’s hollow...let me try the next...” She tapped as lightly as she could. “We could try them—”

  “Hey!”

  Everyone froze.

  “Down here!” shouted Amelia from the ground. She slammed her boot against the wooden floor and it reverberated up the tower, shaking planks all the way up the stairs. “I think it’s down here!”

  At the sound of her booming voice, the bookshelves creaked and Raine, Dawn, and Marshal threw up their hands and grimaced.

  Marshal leaned over the rail and put a finger to his lips. “Quiet!”

  Amelia cupped her hands around her mouth. “Did you hear me? I think it’s down here!”

  ◆◆◆

  As soon as they made it to the bottom, they immediately saw what Amelia was talking about. The wooden floor gave a different sound when they walked in the very middle, like it was hollow underneath.

  “It’s different wood,” said Dawn, kneeling. “And now that I’m looking for it, I can see the cracks around the edge. If we lift it up, we’ll see what they’re hiding down here.”

  “Let’s do it,” said Raine. “Do we need a tool or something?”

  “It’s not even budging a little when we step on it,” said Dawn. “It’s tight. Well-made. There’s a particular way to get this open, and we might even need a key.” She put her ear to the ground and tapped the floor panel a few times.

  Near the door, Marshal was trying to explain the Bookhouse to a confused Amelia.

  “They keep books here, Amelia. Lost books.”

  “That’s why I can’t talk?”

  “And the Lodi perform their religious ceremonies here, too.”

  “Do they get to talk during those ceremonies?”

  “Of course, they do, Amelia!”

  She only responded with a frown.

  “I can’t believe I brought her here,” whispered Raine. “A husk in a Bookhouse? I’ll be the most famous Lodi ever if I keep this up.”

  “We’ll find you another Dae stone,” said Dawn. “Then you really will be the most famous Lodi ever.”

  “Thanks.” He wanted to reach for her hand, as a friend would, but he knew she would shrink away if he did.

  The doors to the Bookhouse opened, and Dawn and Raine rose to their feet.

  “Raine?” A Lodi poked his head in the door, the young scribe Raine had seen earlier. “Raine, will you come with me?”

  Raine and the others gathered near him. “What do you want?”

  “Not me. Hild. She wants to see you.”

  “Guess we’ve outstayed our welcome,” said Raine, looking at the others.

  “No, quite the opposite,” said the other Lodi. “I’ve convinced her to let you all stay.”

  “All of us?” asked Dawn. “How?”

  “I’ve reminded our leader how few Lodi are left in the continent.”

  “Fine point,” said Marshal, “but she’s also keeping an eye on us.”

  The scrawny Lodi shrugged. “Either way, they’re waiting on you. Please, call
me Aquillo.”

  26

  They returned to the longhouse, where Hild, clutching a fresh cup of tea, waited in the middle of a large room, surrounded by every single Lodi who live at The Dunes. Raine counted nearly twenty.

  No one spoke as they arrived. Some stared at Amelia while others backed away from her, recognizing her true nature.

  “Aquillo has reminded me the Lodi don’t have many friends,” said Hild. “So, welcome to The Dunes, Raine.” She looked at Marshal, then Dawn, and finally Amelia. “All of you, I suppose.”

  Marshal removed his hat. “Do you know where you’re going, High Keeper.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “Yes.” Hild stirred her tea in silence, letting everyone know Marshal’s line of questioning was over. She turned her eyes back to Raine. “Why did you come to The Dunes.”

  “To warn you!” Raine tried to keep his voice down. “You’re in danger.”

  “You said that before, but you’re hiding something. I know, because you must have already been on your way here when you saw the Republic coming. So, once more, Raine, why did you come to The Dunes?”

  Raine closed his eyes. He remembered standing on the tall rock, when he’d thrusted the Dae stone out and watched the sand rise. Feeling the power under his skin and calling his own sandstorm to stop the Republic. His hand, bereft of the stone, trembled at the emptiness that weighed heavily in his palm.

  “Raine?”

  He opened his eyes. “We came for the books.”

  Hild tapped her foot. “Those books have always been available to you. Visit the Keepers. Between them all they know all of the stories.”

  Raine sighed. She wasn’t going to make this easy. “Not those books.”

  A few of the Lodi held their breath, eyes on Hild. Her face did not move, but Raine felt her anger grow.

  “Those books...are not for you,” she said. “Not ever.”

  “Then let me talk to the Keeper who’s read them.”

  “No Keeper is allowed to read those anymore. I saw to it myself.”

  “That’s stupid!” Raine shouted, realizing he sounded like a child. “How can we learn from books we don’t read?”

  “Raine, would you read a book if it might hurt someone? No matter how tantalizing, would you choose to go through those pages if it meant those you cared about would die? Or is your problem that you don’t care about anyone?”

  “Of course, I—how can you say that?” Raine could sense Marshal and Dawn tensing up on either side of him.

  “Let me show you all something.” Hild pointed to the end of the room. A few Lodi parted, revealing a map covering most of the wall.

  “It’s Telarine!” said Dawn. She ran to it and began searching along the left side. “Gamon...five wheels from Daeril...” She held her finger and thumb apart to mark the distance between the cities. “Which is ten wheels from Little Cape...It’s an accurate map!” She looked up and down at the edges. “Equidistant, too!”

  Raine believed that, were it possible, Dawn would give this map a hug.

  Marshal sighed. “Dawn. The High Keeper is trying to show us something.”

  Dawn noticed the many eyes pointed at her. She crept to the side, close to the wall, and returned her gaze to the map, talking to herself.

  Hild looked squarely at Raine. “Notice anything your friend left out?”

  “There are Lodi cities marked all over,” he said. “Some I don’t even know.”

  “This is where we keep track of our settlements.” Hild held out her hand. “Scribe?”

  Aquillo reached into his apron and retrieved a thin stick of charcoal that tapered on one end. He dropped it onto Hild’s waiting palm.

  “Here’s where Whitesand used to be.” She drew on the map, making an X over the city name. “And Third Bend...was here.” Hild drew another X. “Sirap, of course, was destroyed not long ago. Both the Lodi and the Republic families who lived there were wiped out. All but one young man.”

  A few eyes moved to Raine. Dawn and Marshal wouldn’t have understood Hild’s pointed comment, but she had made a rhetorical detour just to point out that Raine was a sole survivor of a massacre that, she believed, was his own fault. It was a belief Raine had been trying not to accept himself.

  The Keepers told me not to ask about Dae stones. They said the Republic would come if I poked around. But I only talked about it with my own people! Raine hated himself for realizing Marshal had been right: there must be a mole in every Lodi city.

  “But there’s been more violence than you four realize.” She used her charcoal to draw another X over Treling, a city near Third Bend. Then another X over Ronul.

  Ronul? The only thing anyone knew about Ronul was that it sat at the edge of the continent, far from any political trouble. No one there was asking about Dae stones. It’s only got a few dozen Lodi and hardly any of them are under sixty!

  He heard Marshal gasp as Hild continued. She drew more than a dozen Xs before stopping, leaving the map stained with the foreboding marks.

  “What...what does that leave?” asked Raine. The marked-up map left him breathless.

  “Still a dozen settlements...” Hild straightened up and tapped at her chin. “Five hundred Lodi live in the city of Gamon, and a few hundred are scattered in the caravans. We think maybe a few thousand of us are left.”

  Marshal whistled.

  A few thousand. Raine gazed at the map, remembering his people once populated all of it. Before the Republic. Even before the Outsiders. In those days, the Lodi were uncountable.

  “It’s genocide,” said Marshal. “Plain and simple. But why now?”

  “That’s what we’ve been asking,” said Hild, returning the charcoal pencil to Aquillo. “We’ve been trying to wait out the Republic’s prejudice, but suddenly Lodi are being killed all over the frontier.”

  “No Lodi are safe anymore,” said Marshal.

  “The Chastened Ones are.” It was Aquillo. He cast his face down when he finished talking.

  “I’m sorry?” said Marshal.

  “That’s what they call us. In the city.” Aquillo spoke to the floor. “The Chastened Ones.”

  Raine turned to Marshal. “The Lodi who have agreed to serve the Republic. They seem to be safe, so long as they don’t have anything to do with the Lodi on the frontier.”

  “We could all join the Chastened and live under the Sovereign’s rules,” said Hild. “But it means giving up everything. Every book. Every Keeper’s robe. I do not judge those who leave, but while there are Lodi who resist I will lead them, and I will go where they go.”

  No one should live under the Sovereign if they can be free, Raine wanted to say, but, looking at the scattering of marks on the map, he had trouble believing it. What he did believe, now that he was looking at the consequences of his obsession, was something he hadn’t wanted to admit to himself, a fear that had haunted him since Republic soldiers arrived in Sirap.

  “I caused all of this, didn’t I?” he whispered.

  He risked a glance at Hild, and his heart sank when her eyes bore down on him in silent agreement.

  “I asked too many questions about the Dae stones,” he continued. “They came to stop me. I think they’re doing all of this because of my questions. Because I believed—”

  Dawn hushed him by loudly tapping the map. “It’s not your fault.”

  Raine staggered. “What?”

  “Look how far away these cities are.” She spread her arms across the map, reaching to touch cities on both ends. “They’re wheels and wheels away from each other but got attacked by the Sovereign’s men around the same time. They couldn’t have heard about Raine and then started all of these attacks so quickly.”

  Raine stepped closer to the map. Sirap was near the middle of the continent, but the Xs Hild had drawn were scattered all over. “...I think you’re right.”

  “I don’t doubt the Sovereign heard about you,” continued Dawn, “because he’s obsessed with news about the Lodi.”


  “And we’re full of spies,” complained Hild.

  Marshal put his hand on Raine’s shoulder. “Important thing, son, is to remember that the Sovereign did this. Not you. Don’t go thinking you’re responsible for everything that makes you feel bad.”

  Raine patted Marshal’s hand and tried to believe his words.

  “So, are these massacres just meaningless killing?” said Hild. “I don’t think so—there has to be a reason.” Hild looked to Dawn. “You were in the Republic. You heard nothing about this?”

  Dawn shrank back and shook her head.

  “Someone in the Republic had to know,” said Hild. “I’m tired of not knowing what’s going on. The frontier’s under attack and no one even knows the details.”

  “I know.”

  It was Amelia’s voice. The room hushed. Raine watched Amelia’s unmoving face and wondered if she’d spoken at all.

  “I know,” she repeated. “I know what they’re doing.”

  Raine gestured toward her. “Great. Tell us. Why all these attacks all the sudden?”

  Amelia straightened up but didn’t speak.

  “Amelia?” Marshal crept closer to her. “Did you say you know something?”

  “I do.” She stared straight ahead, not looking at anyone.

  “Would you tell us? Please?”

  Nothing. Amelia kept her hands clasped behind her back and her mouth closed, her lips forming a thin, silent line.

  “Is the creature playing a game?” demanded Hild.

  “She can’t do that,” said Marshal. “There’s...something wrong. Amelia, what do you know about these attacks?”

  She looked at Marshal. “Do you want to know where they took place? I know many things. You’ll have to be more spec—”

  “About the Lodi!” Marshal shouted. “Even you have to know what I’m talking about.” Amelia’s stone face turned away from him again. Marshal held up his hands. “This isn’t going to work. Let’s forget she knows anything—”

  Amelia gripped his arm. “Ask again.”

  Raine was nearly at his wit’s end, just like Marshal, but Amelia’s eyes were wide open in a plea, begging with unmistakable desperation. She does know something.